You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

yeah, and i firmly believe that nobel prizes are won with induction more often than deduction...

the entire reason some correlations nowadays are considered "deductive" was because of "inductive' problem solving for instance...

in the beginning of time, who thought that there was a correlation with space between molecules and their density? only after someone discovered it and proved it.

yep, i can agree with that too. the difference though is that the term 'deductive reasoning' is very much a corrupted form of what it was. a lot of so called deductive reasoning is really just inductive, or even worse, abductive reasoning (inference to the best solution).

take genetics for example. the guy took plants, breeded and cross breeded them and noted down the characteristics passed on from the parent to the child. he then said 'given this information, the best explanation is the existence of genes'. that really isn't deductive reasoning at all, but it does have a place in the world. after all with deductive reasoning, 90% of the time you don't learn anything new. we just need to keep in mind the shortcomings of inductive and abductive reasoning. i mean an argument like

a. there's a noise on the roof

b. it could be elves

c. no one here can think of a better explanation

therefore d. elves caused the noise on the roof

is obviously both an inference to the best solution and absolutely bullshit. the beauty of a deductive argument is very much the rare guaranteed nature of the conclusion. it is not like deductive reasoning hasn't caused any breakthroughs either. 'i think therefore i am' is a deductive argument (as long as you understand it) and now the most famous words in philosophy. there's a place for all these argument forms in our society. the important thing in this thread though is understanding that they are different. i think it is safe to say that induction and deduction are very different things indeed.

Russell was very concerned with the problem of induction. According to Hume, the principle of induction is synthetic, and therefore, any attempt to justify it inductively would beg the question. Must the principle of induction be presupposed without a reason? If this is a problem, then induction is peculiar indeed.

Take the following inductive inference:

a is y, b is y, c is y |= every x is y

This inference can be improved, or made more "cogent" by adding premises, for example:

a is y, b is y, c is y, d is y |= every x is y

Again:

a is y, b is y, c is y, d is y, e is y |= every x is y

And so on.

So what is the perfect inductive inference? Which inductive inference would be the most cogent? Well, presumably it is the argument with infinitely many premises:

a is y, b is y, c is y, d is y, e is y, ... |= every x is y

But 'every x is y' is now equivalent to the premises, and this is no inductive inference, but deductive! Moreover, the premises and conclusion are equal, that is, they say the same thing by different methods. In other words, the inference does not just beg the question, but is circular! Apparently, inductive inferences become stronger as more and more of the conclusion is begged. That is, the more closely an inductive inference resembles a circular inference the better, and yet despite striving to beg the question, Russell thought it a problem, too.

A criticism that can be brought against everything ought not to be brought against anything.

i imagine inductive reasoning is about finding a conclusion that cannot be made with the current structure of available deductive reasoning.

i mean, if a=b, b=c, then a=c right? <--- deductive

if the packers beat the giants, and the giants beat the cowboys, then packers should beat the cowboys.

but what if the cowboys beat the packers?

then i'd imagine there would be many different explanations

deductive would say = this game was an aberration

inductive might say = there are many reasons why it could be

either could be right. but neither reason is as specific enough to explain exactly why.

there's an error in your example. beating someone is very different from being the same as. heck, it is not even a greater than statement. if you said packers > giants > cowboys, then packers must > cowboys. however, you said that they beat them, hence there is an inequality going on. what you put forth was an inductive argument from the start, so there is a natural margin for error.

there's an error in your example. beating someone is very different from being the same as. heck, it is not even a greater than statement. if you said packers > giants > cowboys, then packers must > cowboys. however, you said that they beat them, hence there is an inequality going on. what you put forth was an inductive argument from the start, so there is a natural margin for error.

ah. yes u are right.

thnx for pointing that out. i guess announcers on espn talk too authoritatively sometimes for my own liking lol

When someone asks for the reason for an idea, they sometimes want a causal explanation. And there are such explanations which describe where guesses "come from", but these reasons do not entail the logical content of the guess. That is, guesses do not "materialise out of nowhere", but their logical content does.

Many people confuse these two kinds of reasons, and it is the chief error of so-called inductive logic. Our sense experiences have a noticable causal relationship with our ideas, and we can often recall sensory experiences which taught us something new. However, these experiences do not actually entail what we learn, and from that fact the various problems of induction arise. In other words, people were fudging the two types of reasons, and expecting causal reasons to double up as logical reasons. The confusion is, perhaps, understandable. The language of logic is rife with the metaphor of causation, and some people extend their similarities too far.

The psychological and logical issues ought to be kept distinct.

Blah, I've had a hard time explaining myself here.

Different approach:
-Computers are only capable of deduction
-The brain is a computer
-Therefore the brain is only capable of deduction

The mind, however, is a shitty program on the computer of the brain. It can output logically invalid things. The label "induction" only means anything in the program. At a deeper level, our brains are just doing deductive analysis all the time (that's what computation is). We don't have access to most of what's happening in the brain (since our consciousness is just one of many programs). So when we make inferences, we think they're novel. But they're really the result of some deductive process in some other program in our brain being sent as input to our consciousness.

Did that make any sense?

I said it before this other way: induction is actually a form of deduction where some of the premises are hidden by the bounds of our consciousness.

Howabout this way:
a->b
a
therefore b

If we had a->b stored somewhere in our unconscious, and we came upon a, we would conclude b. We would call this induction. But it's really just deduction with hidden premises.

Deduction is the process of assimilating known categorical information into novel *analogous* situations/circumstances to thereby make/draw intelligible, or probable conclusions. When we deduce, we integrate the law of constants into different yet similar domains.

Induction is the process of discovering a new category, or a previously unknown, invisible string that connects and coheres previously assumed unrelated parts.

Intuition is an inductive cognitive process, whereas reasoning is a deductive pursuit.

And both processes are dependent on one and other and tend to foster each other.

Personally, I find the process of deduction boring. The process of induction, however, I find to be pretty fucking cool.

And, at least for me...

Induction ~ synthesis

Deduction ~ analysis

`
'Cause you can't handle me...

"A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it." - David Stevens

Deduction is the process of assimilating known categorical information into novel *analogous* situations/circumstances to thereby make/draw intelligible, or probable conclusions. When we deduce, we integrate the law of constants into different yet similar domains.

Induction is the process of discovering a new category, or a previously unknown, invisible string that connects and coheres previously assumed unrelated parts.

Intuition is an inductive cognitive process, whereas reasoning is a deductive pursuit.

And both processes are dependent on one and other and tend to foster each other.

Personally, I find the process of deduction boring. The process of induction, however, I find to be pretty fucking cool.

And, at least for me...

Induction ~ synthesis

Deduction ~ analysis

yeah. i agree with ur opinion about which one u like better, and i THINK thats a good explanation. i do need more deductive reasoning tho...

its all too wispy in my head for the precise definition to be written down.... lol

Think in terms of natural selection. What good would a brain be if it were a perfect deduction machine? Perhaps it would have some use, but would have a major disadvantage--all the right premises woud have to be "built in". Imagine that this kind of brain evolves, but some mistakes creep into the system i.e. occassionally the information copying processes make mistakes a create something novel (analogous to genetic mutations). Sometimes these ideas will be flawed, even hazardous, but from time to time they might actually be improvements, good ideas, and worth keeping. Eventually natural selection begins selecting for brains which make these "mistakes", and moreover, for cognitive apparatus which deal with and evaluate them.

Some billion years later, brains are systematically making "mistakes", and calling them inductions, abductions, or more accurately, good guesses.

A criticism that can be brought against everything ought not to be brought against anything.